Illusions of a Lost Love
by goldensomething
Summary: This story follows the events of "A Pirate's Life for Me," and focuses on the love story of Ace's son Sabo. In our Original Universe, Ace escaped death by a thread, and is now happily married with two children, Rouge and Sabo. Rouge's story is told in Dragon Tamer. Now it's Sabo's turn, and it's a heartbreaking story of true love surviving against all odds.


***** DISCLAIMER, PLEASE READ- Illusions of a Lost Love is the fourth (kinda fifth) published story in this One Piece Universe that I and Jesachi, u/711995/Jesachi, have written together. Many people really enjoyed the first one, The Way of the Sword and Rose, but Jesachi and I have moved on to other writing in our lives, and we don't think we're ever going to go back and edit these. Therefore, this is a **WARNING** that this story is completely **UN-EDITED** and also written as a roleplay between myself and Jesachi, so the point of view switches between the two main characters every now and then. If this bothers you, don't read it :) We are only publishing these because we thought our fans might want to see the direction we took with our One Piece Universe. This is the story of Ace's son Sabo, and his long-time love. There are **disturbing themes of violence** in the beginning of the story, so you are warned! I hope you enjoy! :)**********

_He tagged her with the towel, twirling it like a whip and snapping it at her legs. She squealed and dodged him, her laughter breathless. Her transparent sarong curled around her legs, her braids pulled back away from her face in a thick ponytail._

"_Sabo!" __she laughed, holding her hands out to ward him off as he twirled the towel again, __"__Stop it!__" __but her voice betrayed her delight._

_He snapped the towel at her again and she laughed. The sound thrilled him - he could listen to it all day. Somewhere in the center of his chest, he ached. He hurt for this woman, yearned for her, required her like he required oxygen to breathe._

_He caught her with the towel and used it to pull her close to him. She pretended to fight him, pressing her hands against his face as he tried to kiss her, turning her face away. He blew a raspberry against her neck, grinning against her coffee-colored skin._

"_You are a troublemaker,__" __she said in French Creole, her native language._

"_You love it,__" __he replied, mischief dancing in his blue eyes. He leaned down and kissed her mouth and she sighed._

_He pulled back and smiled at her and then fell backward. She screamed and they splashed into the water__…_

Sabo shifted and rubbed his hand over his face, blinking away as the remnants of the dream that lingered around the edges of his foggy brain. _Dahlia_. He sat up, disrupting the books that were on his chest and covering his legs. He was in the library of the Hebi-Go, where he could be found most days. And most nights, in fact. He didn't sleep much. When he did, his dreams were filled with _her._

Sabo, the unknown son of Portgas D. Ace - who was very much alive and kicking - glanced around him and rubbed the center of his chest. It felt like he had a lump there, inside, like a hunk of cold steel perpetually bogging him down. It was always like that; only she could melt it with the touch of her tattooed hands or a flicker of her golden eyes.

He flipped his eyes around, pivoting his head and pushing books aside until he found the one he was looking for. It wasn't anything particularly special as far as content went. It was what was stored _inside_ the book that mattered.

He flipped it open and pulled out a folded piece of paper, a little tattered and the crease starting to wear from opening and closing it so many times. Written on the inside was a letter, half in French Creole and half in the common tongue, seamlessly blending the two languages together. Sabo ran his fingers over the script, curling and elegant, one letter curving into the next, confessions of love and yearning. It was her most recent communication with him; the letter was probably only a month old. His eyes - the color of a cloudless blue summer sky - skimmed the words if he read them once, he'd read them a thousand times. The ache in his chest expanded. How long had it been since he'd last seen her? Six months? He'd seen her at Fuusha village last year when his great-grandfather Garp had passed away, and then once more since then. He counted in his head. Six months, two weeks and three days, precisely since that day.

Perhaps he could convince his captain to let him go to her one more time before they headed into the New World for a stint. Hook up with his older sister, Rouge and her ex-marine husband and catch a ride…

He got to his feet and stretched his long body out, his arms over his head and then thrust his hands through his thick, sunshine blonde hair. His face was nearly identical to his fathers; his nose was straight, eyes sharp and serious - when he wasn't grinning like mad - his mouth wide with the bottom lip fuller than his straight upper lip. He even had the smattering of freckles and the wild, mischievous grin - which he shared with his sister. His identity was his biggest secret and the only reason he could even lead such a pirating life was because he inherited his mother's coloring despite his features. Blonde hair, bright baby blues, and his village told him that his lean and lithe physique came from his mother's side too. Mara didn't have any biological family left.

Outside, the sky was a miserable gray color, the clouds one endless sheet of steel. He leaned into the window; the ocean was still as glass and cold as an empty mirror. He didn't know much about the weather other than what he'd read in books, but he wondered idly if this was the calm before the storm. Raion would let them know.

Speaking of Raion…

Sabo leaned to the left a little, angling his body so to see better as the captain came out of his room, followed by a small, narrow framed woman with beautiful, straight auburn hair. Eevee. The Black Mamba doctor. He watched them for a minute, a smile curling around the edges of his mouth. Watching them was so interesting. Raion - his best friend soul mate, his brother-from-another-mother and conveniently, also his cousin and co-star in life - was usually so smooth with people, particularly the opposite gender. The captain had charmed, manipulated and schmoozed his way into the hearts and pants of dozens of women over the course of his post-pubescent life.

But with Eevee, it was like watching a teenager bumble around over his first dinner date. She was all dancer's grace and noble-lady elegance and Raion turned into this awkward, insecure fool over her. The captain always did have difficulty expressing his feelings - he was more of a physical individual - and Eevee sorta forced him to face that and communicate with her. Sabo knew that Raion struggled to be a boyfriend/lover/whatever for her. After a year, you'd think he'd have the hang of it by now, but he didn't and watching him have to actually try and work hard at something always made Sabo feel good.

The pair moved across the deck. Eevee twirled and danced and skipped. Perhaps they had been playing music this morning. Raion said something and she laughed and caught his hand and forced him to dance with her for a minute. Then… they disappeared from view.

Sabo rubbed his chest again. He missed Dahlia. She was his first, his only, his forever. That didn't seem realistic, sure, but it was the truth. He'd been all over this world, seen hundreds and thousands of people, met all kinds of women and had many, _many_ scandalous offers for one-night-flings, but there wasn't anyone out there that could compare to her. At this point, she was a part of him, their roots so entwined together that it was impossible that they could ever part, that there could ever be another. They were together, they were one. He'd read a myth somewhere once that said that humans were once created with four arms, four legs, two heads and one heart and soul. The gods had feared humans would be too powerful and so with the blast of a lightning bolt, the humans were separated and forced to hunt for their other halves for the rest of their lives. She was his other half; of this he was convinced. If he was offered every day the choice to keep her or have any plethora of beautiful women who trounced through his life, he'd pick her every single time. Because that was the thing; choice. He chose her, day in, day out. He loved her and he would continue to love her every day for the rest of his life.

The galley was bustling this morning. Normally, he was one of the first people in here - a by-product of not sleeping much - but today, he was last. Raion sat at the head of the table as usual and he and Titus were in conversation. To Raion's left was Eevee and she and Margherita were heads-together over the newspaper. Margherita was chewing a piece of bacon and Eevee had one delicate hand wrapped around a steaming mug of tea.

In the kitchen, behind the bar counter, Titus' twin brother Zeke was cooking and Eddie - their newest crew member - was lurking suspiciously, like he was ready to snag something when Zeke wasn't paying attention.

"Another kidnapping…" Eevee commented just as the galley door swung shut behind Sabo, "That's the third one this week…"

"Where?" he asked, coming up behind her chair and leaning over it. He grinned and nodded at the mild 'good morning's he got and then skimmed the newspaper, "Town of Kipfall… three women disappeared, presumed kidnapped…" he lifted his eyes to Raion, "Sounds more and more like trafficking, senchou."

"Are we gonna investigate?" Eddie asked. He hand shot out and then he pulled it back immediately, "Ow, damn it, you wily Fishman, I just wanna taste!" he shook out his hand, wincing as four distinctly red dents in his skin appeared.

"Ya gotta wait, you thief…"

Raion rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "Kipfall, where is that?"

"It's on Applerose Island, I think, in the New World," Sabo replied, meeting Raion's dark eyes. A silent thought went between them. Applerose Island was near Pirate King territory. If the Black Mambas were any kind of pirate crew, they were purveyors of Luffy's domain. If something foul was afoot in his territory, they had to investigate.

"The Slave Trade was disbanded during the Pirate King's time, though, wasn't it?" Margherita inquired.

Raion nodded, "Ya. And since Trafalgar Law operates the seedy underworld of trade, he doesn't allow the trade of humans. Or other sentient species," he added, inclining his head towards the Tiger Shark twins.

"Doesn't mean anything though," Eddie continued. He paused to lick the pancake batter spoon that wasn't in his hand a second ago, "I'll bet humans still fetch a bright beri with the right buyers."

Zeke snatched the spoon back from him, cursing under his breath. Eddie grinned.

"You wanted to go to the New World anyway, yes, senchou?" Eevee asked.

"I did, ya," Raion replied, "And if something's happening over there, all the more reason."

Sabo nodded in agreement, though that lump inside his chest dropped a couple of degrees. He'd follow Raion to the ends of the earth and into Hell itself, but he couldn't help the slight disappointment. He supposed he wouldn't be going home to see Dahlia after all.

The sun was bright in the sky, and the weather was fair on the day that Dahlia's world was violently shattered. And yet…it happened so quietly, so easily, a soft blip on the map of the world, that no one even noticed until hours had passed.

On that day, Dahlia and her father travelled to the remote island of Blue Sands from their even more remote—and mostly unknown—island of Roctortue. They were some of the best sailors Roctortue had to offer, and often volunteered to make the trading trip to their closest neighbor. The trip was standard enough; they were there to trade goods from their island for things that were unavailable to Roctortue islanders. Blue Sands had a small town with a port that linked to two different larger islands in the Grand Line, and on that day, the harbor was filled with boats and the market was bustling. For such a remote island, it was fairly impressive.

Dahlia enjoyed these trips. She enjoyed the sailing, she enjoyed the colors and variety of goods to be found, and she enjoyed the people of Blue Sands. On her own island, she knew every single person who lived there, so the chance to meet new people was a pleasure to her. On her first visit, she'd garnered a fair amount of attention, considering her skin was the dark skin more commonly found in the deep regions of the South Blue. Her eyes, though, were a startling shade of gold fringed in thick dark lashes that she sometimes lined with kohl. Her ears sported several gold piercings that were visible under the hundreds of small black braids that fell all the way down to her waist. She was tall and willowy, her figured draped in colorful skirts and tank tops, a strip of coffee skin exposed along her midriff. An equally colorful length of cloth was often tucked into the side of her long flowey skirts, the fabric crossing over her breasts to one shoulder and hanging down her back down to the backs of her knees. Several gold bangles clinked at the wrists, and her sandaled feet bore two gold toe rings.

Over time, though, the citizens of Blue Sands had gotten used to her and her father's appearances, and they were warmly welcomed on those occasional visits. It was this comfort, perhaps, that lead to the incident that would change her life forever. Some of her friends, upon their visit, had begged her father to let them steal her away for a few hours, to show her a part of the island she'd never visited. With a flash of white teeth agains the dark skin of his face, her large father had barked a laugh and shooed her away from where they were trading, insisting on being able to handle the transactions himself.

That day, as Dahlia, Joey, Megara, and Lucy traveled along the famous blue beaches that had given the island it's name, they were unaware that they were being followed. Once upon a time, before the Pirate King Luffy had conquered the oceans, they might have been more careful. But these days…

The man had come up upon them quickly, from behind, and knocked them out before even a shout could be sung. Likely, they had followed them from the city, waiting for an opportunity to take them more quietly. Slave trading had been eradicated decades ago, part of the Revolution that had come about with Monkey D. Luffy's conquering of the seas. However, there was always someone willing to pay the right price for the seedier things in life. When once slave traders openly roamed the ocean and took as they pleased, now they had to be more discreet, since the Marines—and often the Pirate King himself—would hunt down slave traders.

Unfortunately for Dahlia and her friends, these particular slave traders had eluded the hand of the law. And that was how Dahlia found herself in the bottom of a small ship, hands and feet manacled to the wall. The ship was heading towards a discreet location where she would be purchased at an exorbitant price by a wealthy and perverted man by the name of Guillaume Montebleu. There…she would experience a hell unlike anything she'd ever known, even worse than the horrors that had be wrought on her birth island, so many years ago, that had forced her and her father to flee to Roctortue.

And all of this happened with barely a sound. It was hours later that Marcel, Dahlia's father, noticed that Dahlia was gone. Soon, the message went out to the world: four more kidnappings on the island of Blue Sands. Simultaneously, a message went out from Roctortue Island to two locations: the Black Mamba Pirates, and the Pirate King's elusive home.

They were anchored at a small island - it could hardly be called an island at all, really, more like a chunk of land with just a few trees and a rocky shoreline - near Sabaody when the den-den-mushi rang. Most of the crew was lounging on the beach, giving Titus room to work on the Hebi-Go for some repairs before they headed into the New World.

The gentle _bleep bleep bleep_ of the transponder snail spurred a flurry of movement. Sabo, Eddie and Margherita raced ass-over-tea-kettle to answer the phone first, fighting each other off. Margherita scratched Eddie with the tip of her poisonous claws - him having eaten the Neko-Neko-no-Mi, Model: Mongoose, he was immune to almost all snake venom - but Sabo was too quick to be caught by her deadly talons. He made it to the phone first and laughed breathlessly.

"Cheater!" Margherita whined, "You can't use _Soru_!"

"Moshi Moshi!" Sabo spoke into the phone with a grin, ignoring Margherita.

"Sabo?"

His breath immediately caught in his throat and he clicked the button on the snail to silence it so that only he could hear the woman on the other end, "Hey…"

"Sabo? I…" Mara's voice caught on the other end and his hand automatically gripped the receiver. Something about the tone of her voice set off alarms in his head, "Something terrible has happened…"

"Is everything alright? You okay? Dad okay? Nee-san?" he asked quietly, glancing behind him. At this point, Raion, Eevee and Zeke had appeared on deck as well. The crew was watching him pointedly, clearly alarmed by his reaction. He reigned in a calm facade.

"Yes, but… it's Dahlia…"

What had been stirring panic in his chest suddenly stopped. Nothing inside him moved, not his heart, not his breath. Everything just suddenly tightened in terrible, terrible anticipation. _Dahlia_. "What? Tell me what happened. Is she alright?"

"She… she…" his mother's voice broke into crying, "She and Marcel were out trading and she disappeared. Sabo, no one knows what happened. She's missing. We've sent out search parties and - "

"Wait, what?" he blurted out, confused. Dahlia was missing? What did that mean, missing?

"We don't know, we think she was kidnapped, Sabo, I'm sorry…"

He stopped listening, like a ringing explosion went off in his head and all he could hear was the sound of his blood pounding in his veins. _Kidnapped. Missing. Disappeared. _She was… gone? Where? He was confused. This didn't make any sense.

"… slave traders have been active lately, in the news…" Mara's voice clicked in for a moment, going in and out of his head like a broken recording as he tried to process, his brain racing. _Missing. Slave traders. Kidnapped?_

"I'm so sorry, baby, we had no idea or else…"

Something was crushing his lungs and what air he was managing to suck in burned him like a foul miasma. He couldn't breathe. The deck was spinning and he heard something _clunk_ onto the deck. Maybe that was him. Maybe that was the transponder snail. Maybe it was both because at that moment, he heard Raion's voice somewhere over his shoulder and Eevee was kneeling in front of him, holding a paper bag with pinpricked holes at the bottom.

"Breathe," she instructed gently, her violet eyes consuming his entire vision. He took the bag from her, his limbs working on autopilot. He knew he had to breathe into the bag; that's what she wanted him to do. Was he hyperventilating? Breathing seemed inconsequential. _Dahlia was missing__…_

"In and out," she said, "Fill the bag, then suck all the air back out. Slowly…" she turned her face away and he focused on the brown bag, making it blow up big like a balloon and then sucking all the air back out again, "Get a shot of brandy, Zeke, please."

There was movement around him. He could hear Raion talking - he must've picked up the den-den-mushi to speak to Mara - and then there was the clipped and urgent command and his nakama flustered around. They were prepping to set off. Where? Did it matter?

"Dahlia's missing…" he heard his captain say, "Titus, set our heading. We're going to Blue Sands. That's where she was last seen."

Dahlia was missing. Kidnapped. Slave traders. It couldn't be real. It wasn't real. Nothing moved inside him. No thoughts, barely breathing, wide-eyed and seeing nothing. She was _missing_. _Missing. _As in, she wasn't at home, waiting for him. She was _gone._

It wasn't real. It couldn't be.

"Sabo," Raion's face came into view, "Sabo," he snapped his fingers, "I need you to clue it for me, brother. I need you."

Sabo shook his head slightly and pulled the paper bag away from his mouth, "I don't understand... What's it mean, she's missing? She can't... People don't just disappear, Raion..."

The captain placed his hands on either side of the vice-captain's face, "Listen to me. She was most likely kidnapped. You know the slave trade has been active and Dahlia is a very pretty women with her dark skin and exotic look. But listen, _listen_. We are gonna find her, alright? We can do this, but I need you to pull yourself together for me. Okay?"

Right. Of course. His captain needed him. They needed... Needed to find her. Dahlia. Dahlia was missing, kidnapped, sold to the slave trade. It didn't make sense. It couldn't be real.

It just... It couldn't be. Dahlia was his. Dahlia was his... Everything. His life. She couldn't be just gone. It didn't work like that.

The paper bag was back at his mouth, inflating and deflating rapidly. He watched it dispassionately, as if it wasn't his breath filling the sack, it wasn't his lungs that burned with every breath in. He could hear Eevee talking to Raion, her voice high and light and soft and the captain reply in his even, sharper tenor. But Sabo don't understand what they were saying. Eventually, Raion's voice faded and it was just Eevee there with him, quietly telling him to breathe. Just breathe. It was all he could do right now anyways, watch that silly little brown paper bag enlarge and then shrink back. In and out. Inhale. Exhale. When had such a simple task required so much work?

Aboard the vessel of the men who'd taken them, Dahlia found that things went easier than she'd expect, considering they were being sold as slaves. Once it had become clear that their kidnapping was for that reason, Lucy had begun to sob, and Joey's pretty-boy face had gone pale. Megara stopped speaking, her eyes wide in her face. Other than the four of them, there were two others—both girls—chained to the bottom of the ship alongside them. It wasn't long before it became clear that Dahlia was the clearest headed of them all, instructing everyone to be calm. Dahlia was naturally a very strong-willed woman and, as Sabo often teasingly called her, very _sassy_. On Roctortue, she'd taken shit from no one, and everyone knew it. She was also the first one to speak her mind.

And, a part of her knew, she held things together because she had faith in a certain person to come and rescue her. Sabo…her childhood love, her soulmate…he would come for her. Until then, she'd be strong.

This sass in her raised it's head the moment her slavers came down for the first time after they regained consciousness. She'd expected them to hit her, from the way she spit French curses at them and encouraged the others to resist their captors. It was clear they wanted to, their faces red with anger as she approached her tall, proud form. Instead, they'd taken her away from the others and locked her in a solitary storage room. She spent the rest of the trip in isolation, which was an effective punishment for her, all considering. Yet she was never beaten, and was fed a piece of bread and water twice a day.

Considering the stories she's heard about the slave trade that existed before the Revolution of the world, she'd been expecting much worse treatment. It wasn't until they arrived at their destination that she realized _why _she'd been treated relatively well.

Before leaving the ship, all of them were drugged. It made them all incredibly cooperative and unable to resist as they were ushered, in the dark of the night, into an inconspicuous shed on a seemingly deserted island. Dahlia's memories were hazy from the night, because of the drug, but the shed had a secret passage hidden under the floor that lead to a compound dug into the bedrock of the island. There were cells where they were kept, and more than likely, their water and food continued to contain a mild sedative. Eventually, there came a time when they were taken from their cells and all cleaned and dressed up in simple white gowns or clothes. By then, their captors must have stopped administering the drugs, because things started to become more clear, bit by bit.

One by one, they were lead into a circular room that featured five glass windows. Though she assumed whoever was behind those windows could see her, she could not see them. Still sluggish from the remnants of the drugs in her system, she was spun around slowly, clumsy with lack of coordination, assumedly to show off her 'goods' to the buyers.

This is why she had been treated well, she realized at that moment. Those who had taken her and her friends needed them to be in good shape for their potential buyers. This good treatment, however, was over once she'd been purchased. She was drugged once again, and unfamiliar men—men who worked for Guillaume Montbleu, she would later discover—covered her head with a dark bag and roughly pushed her in the directions they wanted her to go. Though her senses were sorely compromised and she was barely able to walk from the remnants of the concoction flowing through her veins, she knew the scent of the sea and the motion of a ship better than anything.

She spent several days, it seemed, in a small room on the ship. Her bed was a blanket on the ground. Her meals consisted of a piece of bread and water once per day, and meager portions at that. By they time they arrived at their destination, a week or two had passed. Dahlia found herself unable to tell the passing of time because her little room had no porthole. She'd spent the first day or two yelling and screaming through the door in rapid French, telling whoever could hear her exactly how _displeased_ she was with the current situation. But she must have been very deep down in the ship, because no one ever came to shut her up, and her meals were pushed though a small hatch at the bottom of the door that was locked all other times. No amount of yelling ever instigated whoever fed her to do anything over that what he always did: shove a crust of bread and a flask of water into the cell. If she didn't leave the empty flask of water by the hatch for them to retrieve, she wasn't given water that day. Eventually, she'd grown silent, conserving her weakening energy for a chance to escape.

She was 'escorted' off the ship in the same manner she was escorted on it, with a black bag over her head. At the time, she hadn't realized yet that her last glimpse of the sunshine for months had been through the meager porthole of the slave traders' ship.

Now, unbeknownst to her, the real hell of her experience was about to begin as she was lead deep down under a noble's large estate on the island kingdom of Sarabesque. Lord Guillame Montbleu was a wealthy noble among many on this prosperous island in the middle of several of the more prestigious trade routes of the Grand Line. He had five sons, each one more spoiled than the rest. To the people of Sarabesque, he was no different than the many wealthy nobles who inhabited the island.

But beneath the gold gilded facade of his life, of his estate, was the life and heart of a demented and malicious man. Several secret rooms had been constructed deep beneath his estate, and all of those who had built it had 'mysteriously' disappeared in accidents. In these rooms, he kept his _girls_. Thus far, he had collected a total of ten, one of which he visited almost every night. He was, however, always on the look out for more, since they didn't always last him too long.

There, Dahlia was taken, to become his number eleven. There…the proud, sassy, fun loving woman, who relished the sunlight on her coffee skin, who laughed with her friends, who teased her Sabo with such affection…was broken.

Eevee had managed to talk and coerce Sabo out of his panic and for those first few days - maybe even a week - Raion was unsteadily convinced that his best friend was fairly alright. Sabo began throwing himself into research and acquired that haphazard, wild look that always happened when he didn't sleep because he was eyeballs deep into a project.

"It's just shock," Eevee told Raion, unconvinced that Sabo was really fine, "It's going to hit him. I'm really worried."

"I'll keep an eye on him," Raion replied, more to assure her than anything else.

Surely as the rains came during springtime, the reality hit Sabo. Raion stopped short in the doorway of the galley. It was early early in the morning, even before Zeke was up, so early it was still dark outside. The captain had gone out to check the heading and saw the lights on in the galley. Sabo sat at the table, the newspaper open in front of him.

"Hey, buddy…" Raion hedged, carefully shutting the door behind him. Something about the way Sabo sat there seemed… alarming, "Kinda early, even for you."

Sabo turned his head to glance at Raion, his blue eyes a bit haunted and pointed to the paper. Raion approached him and leaned over his shoulder to see what he was looking at. Faces. Pictures of faces. Young people, male and female. The whole page of the paper was devoted to them. It was the 'Missing Persons' page…

"These kids are still missing," Sabo stated, his voice dull, "Missing for months. This one for more than a year," he tapped his finger against the photograph of a young woman, "And look…" he slid his finger down the page to the very bottom. Raion followed it and felt his whole chest tighten up, "Dahlia's been reported missing…"

And there she was, a beautiful dark face among the dozens of light colored faces, with tumbles of braids swept up into a ponytail away from her face. Under her photo was captioned: her name, her origin - stated as Blue Sands - and reported 'missing' a week and a half ago.

"We'll find her, don't worry," Raion said, instilling confidence into his voice even as his mind whirled with the reality of it. People sold into the slave trade were rarely ever found, now that it was disbanded and there weren't any shady places like Tequila Wolf or auction houses to hold slaves. Not only that, but the fact of the matter was that most slaves didn't… _survive_ very long. That young girl missing for over a year? Raion would bet his ship that she was dead.

He didn't have to tell this to Sabo though. The man had clearly come to this conclusion himself - he was a very smart guy - and the reality that it was _Dahlia_ and her photo was in the _paper _to prove it, was setting in. Raion watched as Sabo's hands tightened on the table and his body began to tremble at the idea that she might die occurred to him.

"Hey," Raion said, laying a hand on Sabo's shoulder, "We _will_ find her. No one in the whole world has the resources like we do or the intelligence. We'll find her and everything will be _fine_."

Sabo nodded and took a deep breath, as if he were trying to suck in all that positivity and confidence and internalize it. But it didn't quite reach his eyes, "Right. You're right. Okay."

Raion gave a curt nod, "Yosha. How about some coffee? I can make that for us at least. And we can start brainstorming a plan, sound good?"

Sabo nodded and his small smile was forced, but at least it was there. The captain started getting together the materials for coffee. They would find Dahlia, that he was certain. He just wasn't sure in what _condition_ they would find her in.

Weeks went by in an endless, agonizing blur. The galley had been set up as a sorta crime-solving office. Titus made a pin board and as clues bled into other clues and leads were found, papers were tacked up and string linked information together and maps were circled and highlighted and crossed out and scribbled on until there wasn't any sense to be had.

Raion had been correct in saying that no one had the resources and connections like the Black Mambas. They compiled a list of hundreds of pirates and smugglers and seedier folks to approach and ask. The problem was that for every 20 people they spoke to, only one person had any information at all and it seemed that every clue eventually led to a dead end. Every "something" they received turned out to be nothing at all and as the weeks dragged on, Sabo stopped getting pumped at the "somethings". What was the point, when it would lead to nothing. There was no point in being excited over nothing.

Dahlia was missing. Very missing. The hours spent staring at that stupid pin board with all the stupid, useless writing and scribbling and brainstorming was getting them _nowhere_. All it did was give him time to ruminate. As it was, he didn't sleep anymore. In the brief rest he did manage to get, his dreams filled with her screams and he'd wake up panicked and sobbing in frustration. Always the same… he could hear her crying in the dark but he could never find her. Feeling through the shadows, the murk, banging on locked doors until his hands were bloody. His dreams fed his frustration, his emptiness, his gripping panic and amplified it in his sleep, where there was nothing around him to protect him and buffer his thoughts. At least when he was awake, he could find things to distract him. And his crew kept him from jumping overboard and drowning himself in the unforgiving ocean.

Where was she? What was happening to her? Was she even still alive? If there was a God, he prayed hard that she still was. He didn't know if he'd be able to go on if she wasn't. What kind of life would he have without her? If how he felt now, this… sick, aching hope filled with hysteria and fear, was a glimpse of his future without her… well.

It couldn't be an option. If he let his thoughts consume him, he ended up throwing up whatever he managed to have an appetite for to begin with. Life moving on without Dahlia wasn't a choice. Dahlia _was_ life. She was his oxygen, the electrical pulse that regulated his heart, the blood in his veins. She was his essence, his soul. His existence would be merely a shell without her. Part of him _knew_ he was being irrational. Rationally, logically, intelligently, he knew that he would continue living. To literally end his life, commit _suicide_, was the most selfish thing he could possibly do. Obviously, Raion, his captain, his brother, needed him. His crew needed him. His family needed him. He wouldn't never leave them.

Emotionally… there would be no recovery from Dahlia. Ever.

"What if we reach out to Law again?" Margherita asked, tapping her pencil agitatedly against the table.

"He told us everything he can already," Raion replied, "And he has eyes and ears everywhere."

"The Dragon and her scary boyfriend checked out the Tequila Wolf ruins already?" Eddie flicked eraser bits at Eevee and grinned when she frowned at him.

"His name is Lukas and he's her husband," she stated, "And yes, they checked it out already…"

Sabo gazed unseeing at the pin board across the table mounted on the wall, hardly listening to the conversation around him. Nothing would come of it. They did this all the time, talk in circles, as if collaboration was the answer. He didn't even want to be here, sitting at this table. At the same time though, where else would he go? What else would he do? At least being here in front of his crew, he had motivation to keep his shit together, despite the fact that all these stupid little project meetings did was serve as a reminder as to how hopeless this situation was.

"Maybe we should check it out ourselves," Margherita chewed on her pencil. The wood smoked from the poison in her little fangs, "See if there was something they missed…"

"It'd be useless to backtrack," Zeke said simply.

"Better than sitting here and doing nothing!" Margherita retorted, "When's the last time we found anything? Any leads?" she sat back and crossed her arms, "I'd bet she's gone for good, if ya know what I mean," she muttered the last part, but Sabo heard her loud and clear and snapped his head up.

"You shut that up right now," he growled at her. Her yellow eyes went wide and she shuffled down into her chair a little, mumbling an ungracious apology.

"No one found anything in the newspaper this morning?" Titus asked. Sabo knew the Fishman was doing his best to dispel the frustration and anger and panic that was swirling around the table like a cancer. Margherita's words bounced around his head, _I'__d bet she__'__s gone for good, if ya know what I mean__…_

"Nothing important," Eevee sighed, "Couple new wanted posters, a wedding announcement for some nobles, your basic news and ads… No kidnappings or missing kids."

_Gone for good__…_

"Useless," Raion growled, crumpling a piece of paper and tossing it onto the growing pile in the middle of the table.

_Gone__… __gone for good. Gone._

Voices faded around him and a buzzing sounded in his head. Gone. She was gone. How long had it been? Weeks? Months? It could've been years for all he knew, for all he cared. The result was the same. She was gone and the more time that passed and the more leads that bled out into nothingness, the further and further away she got from him and the more likely they'd never find her. _Never find her_.

"_Useless__…"_ he stood up and swept his arm over the papers on the table, scattering them like leaves against a wind. Eevee gasped and pushed her body back from the table. Raion stood up with a "Dude!" and everyone turned wide eyes to Sabo as he stood with his fists clenched on the tabletop, breathing short and fast.

"Sitting around here does _nothing_!" he exclaimed, "I can't… I…" he ran his hands through his blonde hair, pulling it hard away from his scalp and down his face, digging his fingers in. He was dying. Every day killed him to even draw breath knowing that she was out there and he couldn't find her.

"Sabo…" Raion hedged.

"_Of course__…_" Eevee breathed suddenly, "Wait! Of course!" she leaned down and swept today's paper up and flipped it open, "Sabo! Sabo, wait! Tell me, in the past, who was the major consumer of slaves?"

He blinked at her, like he was trying to clear his head from the fog, "Consumer?"

She nodded, violet eyes bright, "Yes! Who _needs_ hired help?"

"The nobles…" Raion said, a frown between his eyebrows.

Sabo's brain raced as he sludged through the fog of his panic and hopelessness. The nobles… the nobles. The Tenryubito had once purchased slaves all the time, even for the simple pleasure of torturing a being they deemed inferior.

"We need to talk to a noble!" Sabo said, "We need to go to Sabaody or Mariejois!"

"Mariejois would be better," Titus stated calmly, "Higher ranking nobles there."

"Umm, hello, we're pirates." Margherita rolled her eyes, "We don't know any nobles, you fools. Another dead end. Fuck."

"But I do."

Every set of eyes turned to Eevee. That's right. She was of noble birth. How could they have forgotten? She'd been here for more than a year though and the crew was so used to her classy mannerisms that they overlooked it as nobility now. She was just _Eevee_.

She blinked her bright eyes in confusion, "I know nobles in Mariejois. They could know something."

"We can't get into Mariejois," Eddie said, "It's impossible. Suicide. Seven pirates? Might as well run into Marine Headquarters and announce our arrival."

Raion grinned, "We can't get seven pirates in, no…" he glanced around the table, "But we don't _need_ seven pirates to go."

"I need to go." Sabo immediately stated, as if his nakama had thoughts of shutting him out of this operation. Any information that could be found, he _needed_ to be there to hear it.

Raion nodded, "Of course. I'll go too. Eevee has to go…" he made a face like he'd rather suck a snail's asshole than let his girlfriend march into Mariejois with them.

She nodded enthusiastically and a little _kunai_ knife with a blade barely the length of her hand appeared in her grasp suddenly. She twirled in around her finger. The action and the whole image she presented reminded him of Margherita.

"You're going." Raion pointed at Eddie, who's light brown eyes widen.

"Me?" he replied, flabbergasted and gesturing to himself as if he were unsure if Raion truly was indicating him.

"You're the sneakiest person on this ship, and that's saying something as my mother is the Cat Burgular." Raion waggled his brows encouragingly at Eddie, "It'll be good for you, kid."

Eddie sighed and gave an exaggerated flourishing bow with his hand, "If my captain commands."

"Four's enough," Sabo said with a nod, "And the twins and Margherita can guard the ship."

"Yosha! Sounds like a plan. Titus, let's set our heading for Mariejois. We'll set pirate history this week and do what no pirate crew has ever done before… infiltrate Mariejois."

For the first few weeks of Dahlia's arrival to Guillaume Montbleu's 'Love Dungeon'—as it was jokingly called by the guards—she was placed in a room that featured an actual bed. The black hood covering her face had been removed the moment she entered the Love Dungeon, and she suspected it was to instill a sense of fear in her. She was led past several doors that had barred windows in them just big enough for a tall woman like Dahlia to see that they each contained a single woman. Each room also featured a bed, the only piece of furniture.

It wasn't until she'd passed three of the rooms before she picked up on the fact that the beds were bolted to the ground, and that there were manacled chains fastened to the walls at the head of the bed, and more to the foot posts of the bed. Cold sweat beaded on the small of her back, and she felt her head grow a little dizzy with the implication the chains delivered like a punch to her gut.

Some of the girls were only mere glimpses, others, she flat out met their eyes through the bars. Dahlia's were searching, as if asking them without words about this new life she was being thrust into. Some looked away, their withered souls plain in their dim eyes. Others seemed completely dispassionate, as if Dahlia was nothing more than a walking decoration to be added to the Love Dungeon. There was not a single look of solidarity between Dahlia and the girls; no sense of unity among victims. It was as if they no longer cared, not about themselves, and certainly not about her.

The last cell she passed, however, contained a young woman with bright blond hair and vivid green eyes. Her face was not as sunken and apathetic as the rest, and she came up to the door to peer out as Dahlia was led past. In her eyes, there was pity, and her pale little fingers clenched tighter on the bars, as if Dahlia's arrival had only spelt more doom for herself.

As if confirming the reality of her situation…and that others shared it.

Dahlia soon figured out that her neighbor was the newest addition to the Love Dungeon besides herself. From Harriet, she learned the name of the man who'd purchased her, and that Lord Guillaume Montbleu visited 'his dolls' almost every single night. Sometimes, he only chose one girl to spend time with…Others, he could use up to three or four in one night.

Above the window of each of the cell doors was a panel which swung down to provide the Lord privacy when he was playing with his doll. The lord was a sadistic man, and would often instruct his guards to lower the panels ahead of time, essentially giving away the fate of those women each night. It was a psychological game he played to instill fear in the girls ahead of time.

To Dahlia's surprise, she spent three nights—she assumed, anyways, since there was no sunlight nor any clocks for them to tell time with—before the Lord Guillaume decided to greet her for the first time. She'd expected him to come her to right away, but apparently, the Lord Guillaume did not like his women feisty, and waited for their fates to fully sink in before paying his first visits to his new dolls.

But Dahlia had always had a larger-than-average spirit for a woman. Not only had she tried her best to try and embolden little Harriet—and anyone else who would listen to her before the guards ordered her to shut up—but she also managed to claw the face of one of the guards who came to secure her to the bed. Even with the restraints, she fought Lord Guillaume every second he was with her, and refused to give him the satisfaction of her fear.

Her reward was that he visited her again the very next night, hoping his use of her body the night before had weakened her spirit. Dahlia, however, had locked away that trauma in another part of her mind, one that was protected by thoughts of a golden haired man coming to take her away from this hell hole. She was as defiant as the night before.

This trend continued for almost two weeks. Whenever her mind threatened to crack under the way her body had been violated, she thought of Sabo, thought of the wonderful things he had done to the same body. She refused to bend to the Lord Guillaume's psychological torture. He wanted to break her, to turn her into some listless doll for his to use. But he wasn't a violent man, and he did not like violence from his dolls, and so he didn't beat her into submission like she'd been expecting.

Instead, he had her window permanently closed, cutting her off from the other girls and any kind of social contact. Confined to solitary confinement, she was constantly woken every hour or two by the guards, ensuring that she got little sleep. All in the hopes of breaking her mind and her spirit.

In the end, he reached his breaking point with Dahlia. His visits stopped…and her food rations were diminished. Several days later, he appeared at her door, peering through the window. Perhaps he hoped her hunger would be the last straw. But Dahlia's love for Sabo had been the fire in the darkness for her, and it was strong enough to withstand such mental torture. At her defiant glare and string of French curse words, he gave a jerk of his head, and guards marched into her little cell.

She expected them to tie her to the bed once more, but instead, they dragged her out of the cell, and down the hall. At the end, she was led through a doorway into a room where the guards spent their time. There was a set of staircases that led upwards, presumably, to freedom. Across from the staircase was another door. She was led towards that door, but at the last moment, she lunged for the staircase.

The scuffle lasted less than a minute. She fought like a wildcat, and broke free of them twice, before the hilt of a pistol was brought down on her head, and she went under.

When she woke up, she found herself in a dungeon with two other girls. They were naked, and now she was too. Dahlia's wrists were chained to a wall, the same as the girls. The chains were long enough that she could get three feet from the wall before they pulled taught, but the two other girls were huddled against the wall.

Unlike the girls in the cells, these two sported bruises and cuts over their bodies, and even more scars. There was a bucket that served as a latrine within reach of each of them, and accounted for the smell that permeated the room. She soon learned her fate from of them.

This room was known as the Hell Dungeon, and it was situated below the Love Dungeon. This is the room where girls that Lord Guillaume did not want were placed. Rather than discarding those women whom displeased him, he gave them to his five sons to use instead.

And his sons…did not mind feisty, violent women such as Dahlia. And they did not mind being violent.

The first time they came for her, it was all five at once. The other two girls, Juliet and Sasha, shrank away from the violence that erupted, and watched pitifully when Dahlia was beaten, overcome, and raped until she lost consciousness. In those eyes was more than just pity, but also a sick sense of relief…because tonight they'd earned a reprieve from their tormentors, and Dahlia had born the brunt instead.

That night, Dahlia's willpower to stay strong, to wait for Sabo to come and take her away…fractured. In time, it would shatter all together. And then the woman that used to be Dahlia would be no more.

Sabo, Raion, Eddie and Eevee scaled the cliffs of the Red Line from the ocean under the cover of darkness in order to get into the Holy City of Mariejois. The goal, Raion said, was to not make a scene - they needed to get in and out as fast and as quietly as possible. With Mariejois being so frighteningly close to the Government headquarters, getting caught was not an option.

Dressed in all black, they crept through the streets, dipping into the shadows and dodging. Raion and Eddie led the way - Raion giving directions and Eddie picking the most discreet route. Sabo felt like his heart was in his throat and a tightness in his lungs. Was this cautious hope he was feeling? It had been so long since he dared to feel anything. Weeks, months… it wasn't the day-to-day that was the hardest - he was accustomed to being without her for long stretches of time - it was the danger she was in, the guilt that somehow, this was his fault and not being able to help, no luck in finding her, _that_ was what kept him up at night. The fitful unrest that felt like he'd drank poison and it was slowly killing him.

This tingling tightness, did he dare analyze it was hope? Hope, the tiny fire that burns in the heart even long after the mind has given up. It was small and weak and he wasn't sure he had the courage to stroke the flame into anything more than mere embers, in case this lead turned out to be nothing. Like everything else had led to nothing.

Still… it was like it grew on its own as Eevee whispered where they would find the noble they were looking for, as Raion and Eddie conversed in half whispers, half hand gestures and they crept along the shadows towards the estate. The hope grew, as if some force outside of his own mind was saying _'__this is it__… __this is the moment we__'__ve been waiting for__…'_

They made it to the wall the surrounded the estate. It was nothing to scale the wall and get inside. Eevee rolled a sleeping smoke bomb across the yard and the fumes steadily took out the guards. Outside the front door, they crouched in the shadows.

"He'll be in his office," Eevee whispered confidently.

"You sure? It's like, midnight." Eddie replied.

She nodded, "He doesn't sleep much, that's why I couldn't escape when I was here."

Sabo could hear Raion's jaw crack as he ground his molars together and the blonde man had to crack a small smile.

"Let's go, then." the captain ordered.

The office was located at the top of the grand double staircase. Security proved futile against the four of them - after all, what were a few measly guards in the face of even just half of the Black Mambas? - and they crept up the staircase. At the door, Eevee knocked with her delicate hand and a deep voice from beyond the wood bid them to enter.

"This better be important," the man behind the desk greeted without preamble or bothering to look up, "You are aware that I'm a very busy…" his voice trailed off as his eyes lifted and he found that he was staring at four pirates at his door, rather than whoever he was expecting, "Well. Lady Evelyn."

Eevee gave a formal curtsey, "Lord Montagu," she greeted, her voice confident and light, "It's been quite some time."

"Indeed it has," Lord Montagu replied, "You are as lovely as ever," he glanced over her shoulder at the three men behind her, looking fierce and protective, especially Raion. Montagu didn't even bother to address them, seemingly unconcerned for the fact that four of the most deadliest pirates in the world crowded his office door, "The pirating life seems to suit you beautifully."

"Thank you," she breezed into the room like she belonged there. Sabo, Raion and Eddie moved like a shadow behind her, "We have a need for your knowledge, my lord."

"I see. I did not expect this to be a social call. I assume it's rather difficult for a band of pirates to waltz openly through Mariejois. I commend you for making it this far. And not raising an alarm from my security." He moved a few things off his desk and steepled his hands together, "What can I do for the Black Mambas?"

"We wanna hear what you know about the slave trade," Raion stated over Eevee's shoulder.

Montagu's eyes drifted almost unwillingly from Eevee to Raion and his lip curled in a slight sneer, "The slave trade…" he spat in the most dignified way possible, "I assure you that you will find no slaves here, though I suppose I couldn't say the same for some of my colleagues…"

"Do you know who's trading? Who's the dealer?" Sabo's voice was a bit quicker than normal, "Who their biggest clients are?"

The noble's gaze flickered to Sabo, "You speak as if you have something… personal invested in this…"

"One of our friends, my lord," Eevee spoke up hurriedly, "A civilian, taken from her home."

Montagu nodded, "I see." he rose from his chair. The men tensed and Raion immediately laid a hand on Eevee's shoulder, but the noble merely turned and approached a filing cabinet in the corner of the room. He thumbed through the top drawer for a moment before pulling out a slip of paper, "A few years ago, my family was approached by a man of the seedier sort. He claimed he was a smuggler and that if I wanted anything, _anything_ at all, I could get in touch with him. His clients are mainly nobles and he hinted not-so-subtly that if I required any _particular_ persons in my residence, that he would make something happen for me." he laid the paper on the desk.

"Really, my lord?" Eevee stepped forward to take the paper, "Thank you so much…"

Montagu laid a hand on top of the paper before she could take it, "Don't you know, Lady Evelyn, that nothing in this world is free?"

She hesitated, but Sabo picked up for her, "If it's compensation you want…"

The man laughed, "My dear boy, I have no need for money, especially stolen treasure of pirates," his eyes flickered over Eevee's form, "However, perhaps we can come to a different arrangement…"

Before anyone could blink, Raion had Eevee behind him protectively and a sword drawn and pointed straight at Montagu's nose, "We've danced this before, _noble_," he growled, "Don't make me kick your ass again…"

Again, Montagu chuckled and raised his hands, "I know when I've lost, Pirate Prince, the lady is your prize from that battle - " Eevee made a little noise in the back of her throat as if being referred to as a _prize_ was not quite to her liking - "I have something different in mind, actually." He steepled his fingers together, "One of my heads guards… his daughter went missing about a year ago. No amount of searching yielded anything and as my reputation must say blemish-free, I was unfortunately unable to do a complete investigation. Even my circle of influence has its limits. I request that if I give you this information to find your friend, please, find out what you can about the daughter."

"What's her name?" Sabo asked.

"Cassandra. Tall, blonde, just a young teenage girl. She has a devil fruit ability to make body tattoos come to life off her own skin. She's covered in beautiful ink."

Sabo nodded. He remembered seeing her face in the paper. Her shoulders had tattoos on them. She couldn't have been more than 14 or 15 years old, "We will look for her."

Montagu inclined his head, "Thank you," he slid the paper across the desk. Raion stepped forward and took in. Sabo leaned over his shoulder. One it was printed a single name and an island, as well as a den-den-mushi snail ID number to contact him. That tight feeling squeezed him harder in his chest. This… could this be it?

Eevee curtsied, "Thank you, Lord Montagu."

He smiled politely, "A pleasure to see you again, my lady. Safe travels and good luck." he even inclined his head at Raion, who replied with a curt nod.

And like the shadows in which they swept into the estate, just like the darkness, they were gone.

"Don't touch me! Don't touch me!" Dahlia screamed, over and over. Her hoarse voice echoed in the small room, bouncing sharply off the stones. She struggled uselessly as two of the Montbleu brothers wrestled her down to the ground, vicious grins on their faces. A third brother was slowly approaching the girl to Dahlia's right, Sasha, who whimpered and made herself as small as possible against the stone.

Tears streaked down Dahlia's dirty cheeks, and she opened her lips to screech once more, practically insane with fear, when a rag was shoved into her mouth. She choked, her body bucking in reaction as one man succeeded in pinning her down with his much heavier body.

Dahlia was crazed. Every time that they came to use her, her mind broke a little more. She'd lost hope a long time ago…but had clung to the image of Sabo in her mind. Sometimes she retreated into her own head, and remembered the times she'd had with him. Other times, like this one, she was stuck firmly in the present, forced to viciously endure whatever horrors the brothers decided to do to her.

Today, though, she'd finally snapped. She couldn't do it anymore. She'd rather die than let them do as they pleased with her again. She fought like a rabid animal, almost hoping they beat her to death this time. Her wrists, savagely scarred as it is, bled professedly as she tugged and yanked on the chains. She might've worn her wrists right through at this point if they hadn't padded the manacles in order to keep her from ripping her own hands off already.

One of the brothers, the smaller of the two, sat on her chest and grabbed her face with one hand forcing her to look up at him as he laughed down at her. She bucked her hips, her golden eyes wild as she twisted her face and tried to bite his hand. It was impossible, though, with the rag gagging her mouth.

"Grab her legs…use the other chains," the brother on her chest grunted as he slammed his weight down on her chest again to try and stun her. Dahlia felt the breath rush out of her, and momentarily, she was still. She was vaguely aware of the muffled cries and whimpers coming from Sasha, but she no longer had the sanity to care for anyone but herself anymore.

Hands grappled for her legs, and another weight settled on her hips. Both actions spurned her into an even greater frenzy. Savage terror, especially from the feeling of a rigid erection pressing against her bare hip, pumped into her chest, giving her extra power as she kicked and thrashed her legs. She succeeded in freeing one, and kicked it out, hitting flesh and then stone, but it was quickly recaptured.

The rag in her mouth made it difficult for her to draw enough air into her lungs as adrenaline made her heart gallop madly. She started to get dizzy, started to weaken.

"Hold her nose too…if we get her super weak, I wanna get in her ass while you're fucking her," the brother by her legs said, his voice full of sickening anticipation, slightly breathless with effort as he managed to get one of her ankles into a cuff.

Dahlia's eyes widened, and her heart skipped a beat. She watched as the brother on her chest lifted a hand from her breast, where he'd been squeezing painfully, and reach for her face. _No_! she cried in her heart, in her head, the sound coming out muffled through the rag. With the last of her strength, she surged up, pain fleeing in the wake of her absolute instinct to survive, to stop them. Her free leg kicked viciously.

The brother on her chest thrust his hand down against her face brutally, not expecting her to raise her head, and her skull cracked back against the stone floor. For two seconds, pain flared, then vanished. Light flared…then vanished. Dahlia's body slumped beneath the two men above her, limp and lifeless as her consciousness fled.

"Fuck. The bitch knocked herself out!" The brother on her chest spat on her face, sitting up. Frustration brought the palm he'd been about to muffle her nose with against the side of her face in a slap that lolled her head to the side.

"Cunt! It's no fun if they're passed out…Like fucking a doll," the other brother swore, closing the cuff on her free ankle before he pushed himself off of her prone body, spinning around to peer over his brother's shoulder.

Laughter came from the third brother in the room, who was balls deep in the restrained Sasha, her face pressed brutally against the floor as he savaged her from behind. "You morons. You know better with that bitch…she's the feistiest of them all. That's why she's the most fun," he grinned wolfishly, and yanked on Sasha's hair until the girl's face was visible. She's also been gagged, blood running down her forehead and into one eye where she'd scrapped herself on the rough stones below her. "Ain't that right, bitch?" he asked her, leaning his much bigger body over her trembling one. Sasha's sunken eyes flickered briefly over Dahlia's prone form, then away. When she didn't answer, the brother yanked her hair painfully and thrust his hips brutally into her. "Right, whore?" he demanded in a louder voice, and Sasha, a whimper escaping the gag, weakly nodded her head.

"Well, we can come back…she'll be weaker then," the brother on Dahlia's chest said with a shrug, and pushed himself off her. "Looks like she smacked herself good…she'll be like a kitten when she comes too," he grinned viciously, and nudged her body with his booted foot.

"Fuckin' bitch…I was really looking forward to this…and the other one isn't as fun," the third brother said with a jerk of his head at Juliet, who cowered against the far wall, her head ducked between her bent knees.

"Let's go…I'm hungry now anyway. We'll come back in a few hours," the other brother said with a shrug, forcing his erection back into his pants before striding towards the door. With another curse, his brother followed him. Within twenty minutes, the last brother left, leaving Sasha bleeding on the ground. Then, there was a silence in the Hell Dungeon. It was followed by the soft sounds of Sasha's weeping.

He was driven by some wild desperation, something like how he imagined a wild animal must feel when suddenly trapped in a cage. Savage, increasingly angry. He ripped open drawers and rifled through paperwork, his movements escalating to such a level of violence that he didn't notice Raion shuffle Eevee and Margherita out of the room with Eddie and the twins.

"Sabo…" Raion said, holding up his hands, his voice steady, even, calm, like speaking to a crazed beast.

Sabo paid him no attention, moving onto the next set of drawers and ripping them apart, shuffling through each paper in a haze. Nothing. They'd followed their one and only lead, come to this desolate island, found the headquarters, took out most of the people here and still. Nothing. This was the office. If there was anything to find, it would be here.

"There's nothing here!" Sabo shouted, tearing the drawer out of the cabinet and throwing it across the room.

"We don't even know what we're looking for!" Raion shouted back at him.

Sabo paused and blinked at him, breathing hard. What were they looking for, exactly?

His captain approached him slowly and crouched down to skin through the papers, "We need to calm down and think. This is a business. Everything successful business endeavor has to have copies of transactions and careful records." he glanced up, his dark eyes hard and serious, "Well! Get down here and help me! We need to find something about transactions!"

Sabo mustered a deep breath. Then another. Then another, his body perfectly still, digesting the information. He'd blazed in here in a fit of glory, ready for… what, exactly? He came in _looking_ for something and he wasn't even sure what he was looking for. Did he expect there to be a golden table with flashing lights glowing over a single sheet of paper that said _Find Dahlia Here_?

Well, ya. Kinda. As unrealistic as that sounded.

Raion tossed the papers aside, "These are just contacts," he crawled over to the desk and started picking through Sabo's destruction, "We need some sort of record keeping. People are an expensive commodity and easily misplaced or lost. If this were my business, I want to make sure I had accurate copies of where all my merchandise was going as well as some sort of data to represent successful delivery…"

He said it with such ease, such factuality that Sabo found himself holding onto that fact. Of course. He knew that. His brain started flashing, remembering everything and anything he might have read on businesses. On slave trade.

"Something like that won't be in the open…" he commented, glancing around the room in thought, "And is likely coded…"

"To protect the anonymity of the buyers, of course…" Raion nodded, putting his papers aside.

"A safe. We need to find a safe," Sabo suddenly stated, "Records like that are as important as money."

"Especially if the buyers are nobles. No noble would risk their reputation if the trading was not as secure as possible…" Raion snapped his fingers, "I saw some paintings on our way in."

"Classic old school?" Sabo cocked a brow.

Raion shrugged, "Worth a shot."

They exited the room. Everyone was waiting in the hall for them and Raion quickly filled them in on the plan. As a group, they beat feet back towards the entrance. That anxious, jangling feeling filled Sabo again. Damn, he was downright exhausted from the emotional roller coaster he was on constantly. Did he ever actually sleep it off, though?

No. No, not at all.

In the entrance hall, there were a few paintings. The Black Mambas tore down every single one. Nothing.

"Split up!" Raion commanded, "Let's cover the whole compound."

They scattered. Sabo headed into the rooms, ripping open the doors, looking for paintings.

"Heyyyyyyy!"

He whirled his head around at the distant call. He tore out of the room he was in and whipped down the hall. He nearly collided with Eevee and steadied her shoulders, "Sorry!" he said, a ghost of a smile on his face.

In one of the side rooms, Eddie was standing in front of a wall safe, a painting on the floor beside him, a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Nice!" Margherita cheered.

"Shh!" Eddie frowned, holding up a single finger, "Give me a minute!"

He pressed an ear to the steel face and started twirling the lock with expert fingers. No one moved, no one breathed. Sabo felt like something was swelling inside him like a giant balloon. Minutes stretched for an eternity. Finally, there was a click and the small door swung open.

"Tada!" Eddie announced with a flourish of his hands.

Sabo moved towards the safe - everyone backed out of his way - and started rifling through it. Papers neatly tucked into files. He glanced at them briefly then handed them to Raion to look through them. More papers. Bags of money. And in the back… a leather bound book. He pulled it out and flipped through it. And suddenly it felt like he'd swallowed his own lungs. It was business records. Neatly filed.

"Senchou…" he said and Raion was immediately at his shoulder, his fingers skimming down the pages.

"Perfect!" he said, "This is exactly what we need. Look," he pointed, "Description of the commodity, a code name, location, price point… this is what we've been looking for!"

Sabo flipped to the back of the book and slid his finger down the page, his eyes searching frantically. There. Towards the bottom.

_Description:_ _Dark skin, dark braided hair, gold eyes, female. Sold to: __'__Blue Mountain__'__, Sarabeque Island. Price: 45,000,000 beri._

That was her. That was her.

Nothing about him moved, as if he could just stand still and let it wash over him. Or perhaps he was simply unable to process. Weeks. Months. Fruitless searching. And finally. _Finally_. Something. She was here. This was her. It had to be her. That swelling feeling inside him stayed large, almost as if it were too afraid to pop and let the hope out.

He heard a slight intake of breath over his shoulder. It was Eevee and he heard her whisper to Raion; "Sarabesque? I've heard of the noble that lives there…" and he should have registered that her tone of voice was dire and terrified, but he didn't. All he could think about was how _close_ they were.

So close.

Yet still so far.

The island kingdom of Sarabesque was a very typical fiefdom. Even from half a mile out on the ocean, the estate in charge could be seen perched on the highest point near the center of the island. The village surrounded it in the lowlands closer to the water, houses and farms sprinkled over the landscape, with a small cluster in the valley representing the town. It looked like something pulled from a Christmas card.

It was a struggle to keep himself busy. Raion kept throwing jobs at him, from important tasks like furling their sails and taking down their pirate flag to mundane busy-work like reorganizing the dishes and polishing the silverware. But Sabo was thankful for whatever he could do. Sitting around and reading and watching the horizon was turning him into a mental case. At least if he had a job to focus on, only half his brain was left over to mull and ruminate and drown him in powerlessness.

The docked in a cove around the north side of the island, as far away from the village as possible. Their business was with the noble. To involve the townspeople would cause unnecessary panic that would make their escape that much more difficult.

During the final hours before nightfall, Raion took Sabo with him to get a lay of the land. Sabo knew that his captain didn't actually need the help, but once again, he was thankful for the distraction. These final hours were doing a number on him and some out-of-body rational part of him could see the toll this whole affair was taking on him. Every minute felt like a lifetime and his body weighed down like he'd lived a thousand lifetimes, each one a prison sentence. Trapped. Trapped by his guilt, by his powerlessness, his anxiety and downright fear. Once upon a time, he'd thought himself impervious to fear; after all, technical he wasn't supposed to exist. His very existence countered history books. So the only thing he really truly feared was someone finding out about his identity and the mass man hunt that would ensue for him, his sister, his mother and of course, his father. It would be worse than death. And when you have something to fear, something to protect, that losing it is equivalent to dying, well. Death and injury just seemed to pale in comparison.

But this. Losing Dahlia. He'd found something else that scared him. And it was very real, very here, and the panic burned like poison in the back of his throat, perpetual and nothing he could do washed the taste away. And it was killing him. Slowly, painfully.

Nightfall came. The rest of the crew became antsy with anticipation, but no one quite like Sabo. This mission, Dahlia, occupied a hundred percent of his focus. Raion had tried to tell him in the most factual yet yielding way as possible that it was okay if she wasn't here, because this was the best lead they had and they would stop at nothing to find her. The vice-captain didn't process that. She was here. She _had_ to be here.

Raion laid out the map on the deck and ran over the plan with everyone. According to the records, there were quite a few girls here, including Dahlia. Dahlia was the first priority, but if they could, they would smuggle out as many girls as they could as well. If they couldn't walk on their own, they were left behind. End of the story. No one liked that, the idea of measuring someone else's life over another's, but at least they didn't have to make the decision. That's why Raion was the captain. He was willing to make the hard decisions and live with the consequences.

They had some allies waiting at an island close by to take whoever they rescued away. A pirate crew with several doctors, mostly female. It was well coordinated.

Zeke, Margherita, and Eddie would be one group. Raion, Eevee, Sabo and Titus would make up the other. Zeke's group would go in first and secure the main floor. Eddie and Margherita made a good stealth team. Once the main floor was clear, they'd let in Sabo's group to do the main hunting. There was some speculation that this estate would have a dungeon of some kind that would be a likely place to hold that many females, based on the architecture and the layout of the fiefdom. Zeke's group would keep the escape route secure to ensure that they could get the girls out successfully.

The night was moonless, speckled with stars. A perfect night for an ambush. The Black Mambas moved as a unit through the woods and up to the back of the estate. Margherita slithered in and took care of the guards on the other side of the wall. She opened the gate from the inside and let the rest of them in. There weren't many guards stationed outside and like a wraith, each of them fell with either a well-placed sleeping bomb from Eevee or a rag drenched in chloroform from one of the men. Raion had specifically requested as little death and bloodshed as possible, to make sure their presence remained unknown.

Sabo fought the urge to tap his feet or his hands or bang his head against the stone wall while his group waited for the cue from Zeke's unit. Apparently, he didn't quite succeed because at one point, Eevee grabbed both his hands and held them, lacing her delicate fingers between his and squeezing hard. At least it gave his hands something to do.

Finally, after an agonizing amount of time, there was a sharp whistle from the front entrance and Eddie hung out the door and waved them in. Inside the manor was dark and silent. A few guards were propped up against the walls and a few servants as well.

Both Raion and Eevee stiffened as soon as their boots touched the marble floors. Being the only crew members possessing Kenbunshoku Haki - Observation Haki - all the other nakama turned to look at them.

Eevee covered her mouth, "I can feel them…" she whispered, "Downstairs… despair… pain…" her other hand squeezed Sabo's hard.

Raion glanced around, "It's quiet here…"

Eddie nodded, "There's no one here. The nobles are out of town, according to one of the servant girls," he pointed to a corner where a young teenage girl sat, conscious and cowering, "She also said she'd like us to take her with us, or else she'll end up 'like them' if the master finds out about this."

Raion glanced at her and nodded once, "Fine. When did they leave?"

"This afternoon."

"No shit…" he breathed, "Well. This should be easy then. Zeke, Eddie, Margherita, stay here. Make sure nothing happens," he tipped his head towards Sabo, Titus and Eevee, "Let's go. We won't have another opportunity like this."

Raion led the way, Sabo behind him with Eevee and Titus bringing up the rear. They wove through several rooms and Sabo called up his knowledge of castles and large manors to deduce that his captain was leading them to the servant wing. He stopped just before it and beckoned Eevee forward. She rummaged through the satchel that hung over her hip and pulled out two spheres just a little smaller than her hands and a match. She swiped it against Raion's palm and the match flared. She lit the wicks of the two spheres and gave them a gentle underhand toss down the hall. A few seconds of nothing… then a light blue smoke started to rise from them. Sleep bombs. To keep whoever was already asleep sleeping and the rest would doze in moments.

More waiting. Eevee kept a hold on his hands to distract him. Waiting was part of the mission. He hated the waiting, but tried to embrace it, knowing that it would be over soon and he would have her, Dahlia, again.

The sleep smoke dissipated and they crept down the servant hall, opening a few doors to check. People were sleeping, some in very random places like slumped over a dresser. But restful nonetheless.

All the way down the hall, they came to a large door. Through the door, a set of stone spiral steps. Down they went. Eevee squeezed his hand and he gave her a little squeeze back, his heart pounding at what she must be feeling. Even _he_ could feel something about this place. Just… an instinctual feeling that made him feel like he was steadily descending into hell.

Another door at the bottom of the steps. Raion held a finger to his lips and opened the door. A long stone hallway greeted them, dull lights burning between the dozen doors that filed down either side like a hotel. Each door had a window at the top, just about at his eye level, with a sliding panel.

Sabo swallowed hard. This was it. He'd tried to prepare himself for what he was going to find when he finally found Dahlia, but there was nothing quite like seeing it in real life. What was it going to be like, to open one of those doors and discover her beaten, raped, bleeding, starved or half alive? Nausea rolled in his stomach.

"Let's go," Raion gestured with his hand, "Check the doors."

The steel doors didn't require keys to open, but seemed only to open from the outside as it was. Sabo pulled the first door open that he came to and stopped still. There was a bed bolted to the floor, and in the bed was a creature. It was hard to say she was even human, so pale and thin, shivering and naked on the thin top sheet that was littered with little dark copper stains. He felt his heart rate quicken and bile in his throat. He barely noticed as Eevee ducked under his arm and rushed over to the bed. Behind him, he was vaguely aware of Titus peeling back steel doors.

"What's the status, doctor?" Raion appeared at Sabo's shoulder, his face grim and serious. Sabo had a moment of utter clarity in how Raion was the one keeping his cool and Sabo felt like he was fraying at the seams when usually, it was very much the opposite.

Eevee glanced up from her place kneeling by the bed, violet eyes wide and tearfully haunted, "She's alive but… but I don't think she can walk out of here…"

Raion shook his head, "Then leave her."

She gasped and tears overflowed her eyes as too much emotion filled them, "Senchou! We can't! We can't just… she'll come to and realize everyone else is gone. We can't just leave her in this… this hell! Please. Please!"

The captain dragged a hand over his face, clearly very conflicted. Eevee was right. Dahlia may be first priority, but they couldn't just leave some girls and take others. To justify one life more superior to another…

"Titus!" Raion called down the hall, "How many can you carry?"

Titus shrugged, "Two, maybe three. These girls are nothing but skin and bone."

The captain sighed heavily, "Alright. Go fetch Zeke. Margherita and Eddie can guard the upstairs."

The Fishman nodded and disappeared up the stairs to get his brother.

"Thank you…" Eevee said.

The three of them moved down the hall. Sabo ripped open doors, hoping to spot dark skin and braids, but every door that yielded nothing sparked more panic in him. Where was she? The records said she was brought here! He hadn't prepared himself to handle this island and raid as another clue in the string. He expected she'd be here.

"It's you…"

A thin voice half-whispered behind him and Sabo turned towards the source of it. At first, he saw nothing. Then a pair of brown eyes peered through the window across the hall. He blinked at them. They blinked back, haunted and teary.

"It's you, it's really you. The boy with the golden hair…" the girl whimpered, "_Sabo_…"

A single step and he ripped the door open. A small wisp of a girl fell into him, naked, so thin her shoulders and collarbone stuck out sharply against her pale skin, and her long brown hair fell down her back in a tangled, matted, dingy mess.

"It's you," she cried, clinging to him, "I can't believe… she said… _she promised you__'__d come__…_"

"Easy," he said, "Easy, slow down. Who said? How do you know me?"

"_Dahlia_…" she breathed, "Dahlia said the boy with the golden hair would come for us. Sabo, with the sunshine hair and eyes like the sky…"

_Dahlia… Dahlia!_

"Where is she!?" he demanded, grabbing the girl by her thin shoulders and holding her up, "You've seen Dahlia?"

Raion and Eevee appeared beside him and Eevee coaxed the girl to sit on the floor. Sabo guided her to the stone floor and she was handed an oversized tee shirt from Raion's pack. He pulled it over her head to cover her as she nodded and shivered, "I don't know. They took her away. I don't know… I don't know…"

They took her? Took her where? But she was here! She was really here. They were so close, "They took her? Who? Who took her?"

"Sabo…" Eevee chided gently, but he ignored her, focused on the girl.

She wrapped her arms around herself and pushed her lank hair out of her too-big eyes, "The guards. She… she would yell and fight and they took her away. Somewhere else…" her brown eyes flitted about ceaselessly, nervous and edgy, "The master says naughty dolls go away… Dahlia was a naughty doll…"

"Sabo, let's go. We are close, come on…" Raion said, "Zeke will take her," the captain gestured behind him where the Twins were standing, having returned.

The vice captain stood again, his insides trembling. She was here, she'd _been_ here, walked this hall, she'd been in… in one of these rooms… like that girl there….

He yanked open one of the doors and vomited into one of the buckets that was there, one hand braced against the cool stone wall. He felt Raion lay a hand on his shoulder and encourage him in his steady tenor voice that they had to keep moving. Sabo nodded, and wiped his face with his teeshirt. He had to find her.

The door on the opposite end of the hall yielded what looked like a lounge area for the guards, but there were no guards here. He supposed they were all off duty with the master gone. Those girls didn't seem like in much shape to fight anyways.

There were a pair of stairs that went up - presumably to another servant wing where the guards stayed - and there was a second door similar to the one they'd just come through. Sabo ripped open that door to find another hallway identical to the first, but with less doors. Another dungeon hallway. There were no windows on these doors.

He stepped into the hall, Raion and Eevee behind him and immediately, Eevee gasped and stumbled, her hand clawing the doorframe for support while her other hand gripped her temples. Raion soothed her and Sabo felt that poisonous bile up in his throat again. Even he could feel it, the despair and agony in this place. Eevee was a novice at her Haki; she was probably feeling everything of whoever was down here…

The first door yielded a large room with two stone platforms raised like beds from the floor. Manacles were situated at the four corners and it didn't take a whole lot of imagine to figure out what those were used for.

Two girls were chained to the walls opposite each other. One was curled up in a motionless ball in the corner and the other flinched away from the light, digging her bleeding bare heels into the floor like she could possibly get closer to the wall and farther away from them.

"No, no, please…" she whimpered. She was thin, like the others had been, but far more injured. Her wrists were rubbed raw from her chains and her ankles had fresh wounds, seeping and bleeding. Half her face was swollen closed, blood caked in her hair, which had probably been blonde at some point but now seemed to be a dull gray color. As more light poured into the room, he noticed that what he first thought was grime on her were actually bruises, conglomerating on her hips and inner thighs, violent shades. Violent bruises for violent rape…

"Shh, it's alright, we're here to help…" Eevee rushed forward and the girl scrambled for purchase on the floor to get away from her, "It's alright, I'm a doctor. I'm here to help you."

Raion walked over to the other girl and shook her shoulder gently. Then shook it again. Sabo braced a hand against the doorframe as his captain felt for a pulse at her neck. His dark eyes flickered to the other girl then up to Sabo's blue ones and slowly, the captain shook his head.

Dead. That girl was dead.

_Naughty dolls go away__… __Dahlia was a naughty doll__…_

Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Sabo felt along the wall, using it as his stabilizer as he clambered for another door. Dahlia couldn't be in such a place, such an unforgiving, god forsaken place where girls were stored like animals in rotting cages, raped and beaten to the brink of death…

He ripped open the first door he came to and immediately two different voices shrieked and scrambled against the stones. He blinked. Two more girls, chained and bleeding, crying in thready voices, begging him to go away. But there was a third girl in here, chained to the stone riser. The light didn't reflect the same off her skin. Because her skin was darker, dark like the color of espresso. She didn't move.

_Dahlia. _

"Dahlia…" he choked, pushing himself straight up so that his own legs supported his weight and he rushed to the edge of the platform, "Dahlia!"

It was her, but it couldn't be her. She was out cold, bruised, bleeding, blood crusted and dried against her face, in her hair, along her arms and legs. Traces of her henna tattoos lingered in a few places along her hands and feet and her beautiful mouth was swollen. She was naked, just like all the girls had been.

It was her… but it wasn't her. She was here. He'd found her and it was a sick sense of relief that shook through him.

"Dahlia! Dahlia!" he shook her gently, checked her pulse, found it beating, "Dahlia! Oh Christ, baby, wake up! Dahlia! It's me, I'm here! Wake up!" he tapped her face gently and brushed her braids back.

He sniffed - and wiped his face irritably - and undid the chains that held her hands and feet to the corners of the platform. He gathered her dead weight in his arms, feeling how thin she was, this body, this woman he used to touch every curve and every softness of, she was filled with bone and hard angles.

Raion and Eevee burst into the room. Both the girls shrieked and backpedaled into the floor. Eevee gave them a check over, assuring them that she was a doctor, here to help. Then gave them each a dose of of a light sedative to chill them the fuck out. Then she came over to where he was, holding Dahlia against his chest.

She did a quick vitals check, "No fever, just unconscious. We get her back to the ship and I can do a full exam on her," she said, her purple eyes spilling tears, "But we have her back, Sabo. We have her back."

He nodded. That was all he could do. Nod.

34


End file.
